What Dems Fail to Understand: It's Not About Economic Self-Interest

[alcibiades_mystery]

(and never has been)

Here's a scenario:

Suppose there's a really principled young musician who refuses to do commercial songs. He has his own weird style, which has a small following among acquaintances, but keeps him working nights as a waiter in a small restaurant. He has a small bedroom in an apartment that he shares with three other guys, mostly musicians and artists.

One day, and advertising executive sees one of his shows at a crappy little dive in the East Village. The advertising agent thinks the kid has some song-writing talent, and after catching a few more shows, offers him a job at $80,000/year writing commercial jingles for various agency clients. The kid, horrified, refuses. The advertising guy tries to convince him, even suggesting that the commercial jingle business would just be his side project as he develops his album, his real love. The kid turns it down, considering the offer to be the height of sell-out temptation.

So, to the question: Is the kid acting against his own "economic self-interest?" If so, why is his stance romanticized and celebrated vis-a-vis the much more eagerly derided "abortion voters" of Kansas?

Is economic self-interest the end all and be all of politics? Should it be?

[Speck Tater]

1. Conservatives strongly believe in

the idea that to be safe and stable, society must be homogeneous. They believe conformity is necessary for survival of the community, and that non-conformity, and "abnormality" threaten their very existence.

Yes, it's irrational, but their brains are literally hard-wired to believe that way. They vote for what they honestly and sincerely believe is their own survival.

I don't really think there is any cure for that malady. The best we can do, if we want their votes, is to acknowledge their fears and try to take them into account in the way we present our arguments. Attacking them will only heighten their fear of us. So while attacking might make us feel self-righteous, it is counter-productive. If it is truly the final outcome that we care about, then we have to approach them in a way that they will respond to. And that is NOT using the kind of reasoning WE would respond to, because they are not making political choices from reasoning, but from their own hard-wired fearfulness.

[Tansy_Gold]

3. Exactly.

WE have the advantage of being able to respond both rationally and emotionally and even to see the rationale in an emotional appeal. THEY can only respond emotionally and do not have the capacity to understand -- even when it's presented in bite-size little bits that they DO understand -- the difference.

It is not even a matter of survival. THEY can actually accept their own personal destruction as necessary to the survival of the tribe, but further, they can accept the death of the tribe as necessary for its own survival as itself. In other words, better that the tribe die than it be changed.

I had a conversation with my daughter in NJ just this afternoon. "How can woman look at HER and say I'm going to vote for her because 'she's just like me.' Who wants to vote for someone just like themselves? Don't they want someone BETTER?"

And I replied: No, they are so afraid of change that they would rather the tribe implode and/or be destroyed than that it be changed. Facts mean NOTHING to them. It is all in the perception that she is one of them and that she will protect the values, the definitions of themselves.

In large part I think this stems from the two unchallenged building blocks of American civil society: christism and racism. We have never been able to get beyond the religious underpinnings of civil society, giving only the slightest of lip service to separation of church and state. And we have never been able to engage in a meaningful dialogue about our racist past. We still venerate the "southern heritage" that should be as loathed in this country as naziism is in Germany. Instead, we have allowed it to remain strong and vital so that it kept overt racism alive more than a century after the death of the Confederacy and covert racism ("deference" to a white woman from the black man and his n****-loving supporters) alive to this very day.



Tansy Gold

[leftstreet]

2. In a society with no safety nets, how can the question be answered?

Wouldn't the debate would shift if Americans knew the security of things like single payer healthcare, price controls, etc?

:shrug:

[Tansy_Gold]

4. No, the debate would not shift, because the debate doesn't exist

Not for "values" voters.

[leftstreet]

6. Well, ask a Value Voter if gay marriage raises the price of gas

The debate can be shifted

:-)

[Tansy_Gold]

8. It won't stick.

In many cases they KNOW gay marriage doesn't have anything to do with the price of gas, and it doesn't matter. Their emotional engagement over gay marriage will take precedence every time.

In many cases, the very fact that their core beliefs are challenged will make them cling to those core beliefs even more strongly. These are people for whom change is more fearsome than poverty.

Gay marriage impacts their identity. They know they aren't gay (or have convinced themselves they aren't) and it's part and parcel of who and what they are. They find deep emotional security in their identity. It protects them from the wild and ambiguous and uncertain OUT THERE. This is much more important to them than the price of gas.

In many cases, they will easily agree with you and lead you to believe you have "converted" them, but this is a defense mechanism. They don't trust you. They don't trust your ideas. But if they act as if they've accepted your reasoning, they know you will go away and leave them alone.

We are not the same America we were in 1964. LBJ's daisy girl ad might not even have the effect it did then because we have a much stronger and much larger fundamentalist electorate who will see the end of the world as a positive outcome. Telling them to be afraid of nuclear holocaust is like telling them to be afraid of paradise.

McCain knew that there was nothing HE could do or say or be that would swing the election his way. But he knew -- or his handlers knew -- that they could bring on someone who would accomplish all this without doing or saying anything. It's not what Sarah Palin has done or not done. It's not what she's said or not said. Her policies, her past, her family, none of that matters. ALL THAT MATTERS IS WHAT SHE IS. We can't change what she IS, and that's all that matters to that particular portion of the electorate.

If we have any hope at all, I think it has to lie in new, informed voters. WE have to find our own base, the rational base, the "I'M NOT STUPID" base. Only if we outnumber them can we win. We can't outtalk them or out reason them.

It all depends on what the meaning of is is.


Tansy Gold, who isn't.

[leftstreet]

9. Very good points

Especially this:

If we have any hope at all, I think it has to lie in new, informed voters. WE have to find our own base, the rational base, the "I'M NOT STUPID" base. Only if we outnumber them can we win. We can't outtalk them or out reason them.

:thumbsup:

[Armstead]

5. Thought-provoking post. But it's not an accurate analogy...

If this guy refuses some easy money, he is not a typical American. In his case, the lack of money is directly related to his personal passion and principles.

Most people don't hurt their own self-interest out of a similar principled choice. There is no cause and effect between social issues and economic ones. A typical voter does not say "I'm opposed to abortion and I want to get robbed by the rich for that belief."

It's ignorance for voters to see any connection between economic conservatism and conservative "family values." They are acting like chickens ready to be plucked.

[NorthernSpy]

7. I dunno -- does the kid have a family to support?

If the kid has no dependants, then he's free to choose devotion to his muse over eighty thousand bucks.

But if there are people depending on him, then in refusing to make their wellbeing his foremost concern, he's failing them.


Just like all those "values voters" electing the rhetorically "pro-family" market-worshippers who've thrown millions of real families to the wolves.


:eyes:

[Bread and Circus]

10. I think economic self interest has a lot to do with it, the problem is that a lot of

people can't connect the dots between bad policy and their own problems.